$10 BILLION PROPOSAL TO BUILD ARTIFICIAL ISLANDS INTENDED TO BLUNT IMPACT OF STORM SURGES

A recent competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to come up with novel ways to protect against the next big storm yielded the “Blue Dunes” proposal.  The idea was created by the Stevens Institute, along with the WXY architectural firm and West 8 Urban Design and Landscape Architecture.  The project could cost between $10 billion and $12 billion and would be paid for by Congressional Sandy aid funds, disaster recovery grants and public and private-sector funding.
The islands would be placed along the coast of New York and New Jersey, with a gap would be left between the island groups to allow water from the Hudson River to flow out into the ocean.